


you’ve got a hand for the taking (and i’m about to take it to the moon)

by seabear



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Diners, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Hurt/Comfort, Jealousy, M/M, Pining, graphic descriptions of guy fieri
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-23
Updated: 2018-05-23
Packaged: 2019-05-13 03:07:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14740886
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seabear/pseuds/seabear
Summary: “I think,” Lance says, squinting, “he’s a vampire.”





	you’ve got a hand for the taking (and i’m about to take it to the moon)

**Author's Note:**

> title from the song [Sparks](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1Dr10BhmAs) by Jesse Woods. listen to it at your own risk, because it is romantic as HELL and it WILL make you feel at least four feelings

“I think,” Lance says, squinting, “he’s a vampire.”

Pidge levels an unimpressed look at him over the top of her phone. “I thought he was a serial killer werewolf in the witness protection program because he turned against the mob.”

“Okay, admittedly, that one might have been a little far fetched on my part. But like, think about it.” Lance ducks closer, whispering. “Have we _ever_...seen him in sunlight? Hm?”

Pidge groans, “Lance.”

“I’m serious!”

“As much as I would love to sit here and listen to your most likely very detailed and extremely long winded Keith’s Not Human theory,” Pidge sighs, standing up, “I have to be back here in seven hours and I need at least a core three of those to be quality sleeping hours.”

“The word ‘theory’ implies that there’s some kind of unproven element to my very sound and very accurate assessments,” Lance says, then throws himself over the counter, grabbing at her bag. “Also please don’t leave me. He’s going to suck out all my blood and leave me for dead in a pile of tartar sauce packets. That’s the lowest rung on the condiments latter, Pidge. The _lowest.”_

“Goodbye, Lance,” she says, as forcefully as the way she yanks her bag free. “Try not to get too worked up thinking about Keith sucking on you.”

Lance splutters, “That’s not—what—no!” Entire face going hot as he watches her leave with a final chime of the bell above the door.

If Lance is lucky, he’ll get a 6am to 12pm shift at the Blue Moon Diner.

It’s arguably one of the best shifts—his afternoons and nights are completely open for all kinds of summertime shenanigans like drinking with Hunk, shooting the empties with Lance’s old BB gun, laughing over the same dumb inside jokes they’ve had since middle school, and falling asleep on Hunk’s patio draped over plastic furniture using sweatshirts as blankets. Sure, waking up at 5 am is, in a word, _horrific_ —but on those mornings Lance gets to watch the sun come up over the east side of town, everything quiet, air heavy and humid with the promise of July heat. On the Early Bird shift, he gets to work with Pidge, who loves all the same games and movies and anime that he does, and who laughs at all the same jokes he does, and just overall Gets It.

If Lance is lucky, he’ll get the 12pm to 6pm shift.

It’s arguably one of the best shifts—he gets to wake up at the crisp hour of 10am, watch bad daytime TV while eating his Reeses’ Puffs, and head out without bags hanging dark under his eyes into the almost-afternoon, hot, buzzing, windless. His nights are still open enough where he can bring his mom dinner on his way home, or going to one of the townie parties at so-and-so’s house where he’ll eye Allura from across the room, ‘accidently’ hawk a loogie into Lotor’s drink while he’s not looking, and have a generally good time talking to some high school buddies. The Rush Shift is busy enough to keep Lance occupied and make the time go fast, and he gets to work with Hunk, which, like, enough said.

If Lance is lucky, he’ll 6pm to 12am shift.

It’s arguably one of the best shifts—he literally does not have to get dressed in real people clothes until 5:30pm. He can just mess around on Xbox, clean and cook dinner to his favorite playlists, finally catch up on all his podcasts, and just generally live his best life. The Stragglers Shift is easy enough, starting out full-force from dinner where the tips are flush before eventually petering out into nothing but dwindling coffee drinkers and late night desert cravers. He gets to work with Matt, who like Pidge loves all the same garbage Lance does, but he also understands the cultural importance and transcendence of _Vanderpump Rules._

But Lance has never, in his entire existence, _ever_ been lucky.

Because Lance almost always gets saddled with the 12am to 6am shift.

It is, without a doubt, the worst shift. Not only does it majorly mess with his sleep schedule, but it also means any late night plans are always cut short, and are always done (mostly) sober. And something...happens at Blue Moon after midnight. The real weirdos start trickling in, the ones too strange and contorted to let the daylight see them; ridiculous art kids who, after a long night of listening to Yo La Tengo and debating the finer points of postmodernism in literature, order nothing but black coffee and huddle into corners taking Instagram photos of ketchup bottles, haggard truckers who only speak in grunts, their rigs parked down the block at the gas station, and the hair trigger regulars who like to steal the salt shakers and try to talk to him about chemtrails. Not to mention, the tips? Absolute garbage. Between all of it, Lance fills the time scraping burnt fat off the grill, avoiding eye contact with the morose university students, and generally keeping out of Keith’s line of sight to the best of his abilities.

Lance only gets to work with Keith during the Dead Shift.

“Get off the counter, Lance.”

Lance inches his way towards the edge of the countertop until gravity leads his feet to the floor, sour expression sunken into his face. He’d almost gotten through a third of his shift without getting yelled at. A feat many would call impossible, but Lance is nothing if not a dreamer. He salutes. “Aye, aye, captain.”

“Table six needs to be cleared,” Keith says, maybe two inches from Lance’s right ear as he checks the time on his phone. Four hours and twenty-two minutes to go. A big improvement from the four hours and twenty-seven minutes he had five minutes ago when he last checked.

“Wow, two whole coffee cups and a few splenda packets.” Lance arms himself with three rags over his shoulder and the bottle of 409 that was stashed under the counter before turning to look Keith in the eye. “If I don’t make it back, tell Hunk...I love him.”

“You’re being paid to work, not to be on your phone,” Keith recites, just like he does every time he catches Lance checking the time. “Or to be a wiseass.”

“Wiseass? Moi?” Lance holds a mock offended hand to his chest. “If anyone’s ass is wise around here, it’s yours Oh Supreme and Knowledgeable Nighttime Manager.”

Keith only shoves a fourth rag into Lance’s hands and walks away towards the new customer at the counter—Monocle Guy, in his trench coat with the six extra arms sewn onto the sides, here for his standard 2am fix of green tea and half-price bagels from the morning before. Lance sighs and heads over to six where he wipes the table down at least three times just to try to kill a few extra minutes.

What had started out as a part time job while he was getting his Associates at the local community college has morphed into almost three years of plate balancing, customer juggling and shift swapping. Three years of more often than not working a shift where he burned through the hours he was meant to spend wrapped up in dreams, staring out the diner’s windows into a morning so dark and so deep it felt like they were completely alone, floating through space.

“Why don’t you just quit then?” his sister always asks. “The hospital’s always looking for people. I could give your resume to someone! Or Ray’s firm has some entry level support staff openings.”

And Lance will always sigh, because his sisters and his mom want what’s best for him, but what they think is best for him doesn’t always include his happiness. Not that they want him unhappy—they want him to go back to school, get a professional job with benefits and a 401k, buy a home or at least rent a better apartment, and live a life where he’s not struggling. And he knows, knows more than in just his memory, knows in his blood and guts how hard his mom worked to give him and his siblings everything. Knows she didn’t struggle for so hard and so long for her son to be a waiter at a diner, but almost as deeply as he knows all that, he also knows he can’t be what they expect him to be. It'd kill him to.

So even though the diner is draining and Keith annoys the ever loving Christ out of him and working a shift that takes the smidge of loneliness he almost always feels when there’s nothing around to distract him from it, and blows it up to ten times the size...he still feels like he belongs here. Like he fits in the weird rhythm of weird people, and they make him feel okay about being weird, too.

-

“Lance.”

Lance groans, picking his head up from the counter where he’d been shielding his eyes in the fortress of his arms from the blaring light overhead. He still has two and half hours left, and the place is capital d Dead. There’s not a soul inside or out, not even headlights from passing cars filling the void of inky black street. “What? What could you possibly have to tell me to do? _There’s no one here.”_

“Go refill the ketchup bottles,” Keith says, methodically organizing receipts behind the register.

“I hate refilling the ketchup bottles,” Lance mumbles against the cool countertop. “Ketchup is the slowest condiment ever.”

“If you start in on that Heinz family conspiracy again, I _swear,”_ Keith threatens. Rather emptily, in Lance’s humble opinion. Shiro would never let Keith do something to Lance. Shiro loves Lance. Or at least finds Lance marginally amusing. Sometimes he comes in early and talks Lance through the lull while Keith stalks off to brood in some darkened corner, and listens to Lance drawl out one of his many food industry theories, or answers Lance's probing questions about his arm.

“I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again.” Lance hops up onto the counter. “HJ Heinz had too well groomed a mustache to just be into a legit business. There’s only one thing that bodes with that kind of facial hair, and it’s straight t-r-o-u-b-l-e.”

“Get off the counter, Lance,” Keith says without even looking up.

“Have you seen pictures? I’ve got your antebellum right here, lady.”

Last straw, meet camel’s back. Keith stalks over, face set in pure, unadulterated anger—the goal, ultimately. Lance is kind of a glutton for punishment. Sometimes. When Keith’s the one dolling it out. Mostly, he just likes pushing Keith’s buttons so much the guy just breaks and either yanks or shoves or throws something to make Lance move. Partly (more than Lance wants to admit) he likes that quick moment of closeness—the feel of Keith’s hand on his back, or gripping his apron, or hip-checking Lance off the edge.

Lance is expecting something along those lines, and can’t help the way he flails when Keith grabs him by the hips and yanks him forward with such sudden force, Lance hands latching onto his shoulders in a last ditch effort to gain some leverage. Lance feels heat radiating off of Keith like a wildfire, hands still on Lance’s hips, his own on Keith’s shoulders where he can feel the tick of tense muscles underneath the wellworn stretch of Black T-shirt No. 954. He’s…solid. That’s the safest word to use; Keith is undeniably and unrepentantly solid and real against him, under his hands, and Lance wants…he wants...

Keith wrenches himself away, back turned as he pops open the coffee filter and moves to empty the old grinds, Lance left in the wake of that moment with breath caught in his throat, right above his fat, screaming heart.

The bell chimes, forcing Lance to come back to reality, where Duct Tape Belinda is loudly asking for three cups of iced tea and sixty Splenda packets, now please. Which Lance gets, stat, because Belinda’s known for throwing stuff when she’s not taken care of immediately. She thanks Lance by sneezing in his face, and Lance would say it’s the grossest thing that’s ever happened to him on the job, but he’s been on bathroom duty after the mid-morning rush. He has seen true horror, thanks.

-

When Lance wakes up a couple days later with a scratchy throat and the sleepy, niggling drag of a hardcore cold, he can’t say he’s surprised. When it balloons in less than 24 hours into a full blown hacking, sneezing, wheezing, dribbling affair, he’s even less so. Because it makes senses, what with Lance being Lance, and the laws of the universe ruling always in favor of his absolute misery.

Keith picks up on the first ring. “Blue Moon Diner.”

“Keith,” Lance croaks from his cocoon of used tissues. “I dun think I can work tonigh’.”

“Lance?” There's a rustle of papers. 

“I’mb really sick. Like,” he coughs. “I think I just hacked up the baby from Alien.”

“What do you mean, you’re sick?” Keith sounds angry. Jeez, it’s not like Lance went and got sick on purpose.

“Whadaya think I bean?” Lance sniffs. “I’mb sick. I gotta cold. I can’t _work.”_

“Are you—” Keith stops himself, exhaling noisily. “Alright. Take the night. I’ll tell Shiro when he comes in later.”

“’Kay.” Lance shuffles further down into his comforter, trying to keep his teeth from chattering.

“Drink plenty of fluids.”

“I know.”

“And don’t exert yourself.”

“I know.”

“And—”

Lance grunts, “God, I’mb not eben at work and you’re still bossing me around.”

A pause. “Sorry. Just,” another sigh. “Call in when you’re feeling better.”

-

Lance has fitful nights of more waking than sleeping, but when he does manage to squeeze in some dream weaving—hazy cough syrup induced slideshows of everyone in his life doing things wrong. There’s one of Pidge trying to grate cheese on a window screen, of finally getting Hunk to watch Star Wars and he’s on his phone through all the best parts, of Lotor (that’s it, that’s the nightmare. Just Lotor.)

The worst, by far though, is this one: he’s in the diner. He’s in the diner and his apron feels really wrong and he’s balancing like, seventeen scalding hot cups of coffee. The diner might also be underwater? He can’t remember. And Keith—

Keith’s not doing anything. Just pouring more cups of coffee for Lance to balance. He’s not yelling at Lance to get to work or get off the counter or anything. It’s so incredibly jarring Lance keeps tripping and spilling coffee everywhere, his heart seizing up inside of his chest, and Allura is there in her prom dress, saying things like _I’ve always liked you, Lance._ But Lance is just trying to get across the room without spilling anything else, to Keith, because something’s wrong—

He wakes up to incessant knocking on the front door. Groaning, he fights through the tangle of sheets three different blankets, haphazardly wrapping one around himself to hide the truly disgusting, stained, unwashed San Jose Sharks shirt from whoever may or may not be waiting at his door to carry him over to the afterlife. The knocking gets heavier, more persistent, Lance yanking the door open when he finally stumbles over the pile of shoes he’s let accumulate by the coat rack.

“Coming, coming! Jesus…can’t a dude slowly decompose in pea—Keith.”

Lance blinks owlishly, hand falling away from the doorknob, his brain suddenly so, so aware of how low his pajama bottoms are riding on his hips, how his nose is rubbed raw and his eyes are leaking and he’s basically been wearing the same thing for almost three days now and he probably smells like a sewer. He draws his comforter around himself tighter, sniffling.

Keith is just…standing there with a brown bag in his hands, looking kept and together with his unwrinkled clothes and his freshly showered hair and he probably smells like soap and clean laundry and like, nutmeg or something. Lance isn’t even completely sure what nutmeg smells like, but he knows he can’t smell it due to the fact that his nasal passage is as clogged as the diner’s toilet after a mid-morning rush.

He tries to ask, “What’re you—”

Keith holds up his bag, almost defensively, “Shiro sent soup.” 

“Oh.” Lance is sure if his head wasn’t killing him, and if he wasn’t so congested, this scenario might make sense—but it really just seems like he’s walked through some strange dream, like he should still be balancing coffee cups.

Keith huffs, “Do you want it or not?”

“I—yes?” Lance squints, reaching for the bag. “Thanks?”

Keith comes surging inside, brushing Lance’s shoulder and heading straight for the kitchen. Lance goes from functioning at half to about a quarter speed, because his cough medicine addled brain just cannot wrap itself around the fact that Keith is currently puttering around his kitchen with this severely determined look on his face. He curses softly when he yanks open Lance’s cabinet and about six plastic Chinese food containers come spilling out. It’s so potently strange Lance can taste it, heavy on his tongue, like a dream that his senses remember but his brain can’t place.

The tick and hiss of the gas brings the kitchen to life as Keith works off of the fading afternoon light from window above the sink. It catches on the peaks of his cheekbones, the slope of his nose, cuts through the color of his eyes as he washes his hands. Finally his gaze flickers up to Lance, who’s just standing there stupidly in his open doorway in his three day old pajamas and his coffee stained comforter and his snotty, gross face. “Go sit down. I’ll bring it to you when it’s ready.”

“Right,” Lance coughs, covering his face with his arm before wheezing, “Or, y’know, I could just do it and let you get out of here. I’m pretty sure I’m contagious.”

“I don’t get sick,” is the only answer Keith offers, inspecting his cookware. “You shouldn’t let your pots burn like this.”

“Your pots burn like this,” Lance feels like he’s going to pass out, overheated and freezing at the same time—he doesn’t even register Keith swiftly moving across the apartment and gently leading him over to the sofa, which he’s suddenly curled up on with his comforter cocooned around him, the hazard dump of a coffee table being cleared with ease, the TV being turned to some soft-toned Food Network show where the host smiles genially and speaks in easy breaths, everything rhythmic chopping and dicing.

He’s asleep within minutes.

-

“…and you’re going to want to just let that simmer…”

When he wakes up his head is cemented with drowsiness, and it takes him three attempts to sit upright fully—other than the wash of the television screen, everything is stunted in darkness, the glowing numbers of the cable box reading a quarter past six. He’s been asleep for almost four hours, the longest he’s slept continuously in three days now without waking up every half hour. He feels achy, but it’s a well deserved ache that his body’s missed in place of the overstuffed pressure of sickness.

He wonders, distantly, if he just dreamed Keith being there. And where his comforter is, replaced by the thin throw blanket he keeps folded on the beanbag chair (you know, to make the room more home-y).

Then there’s a bowl of steaming soup being placed in front of him, next to a new box of tissues and a glass of water. He looks up, and Keith is standing over him.

“It’s chicken noodle.”

Hearing Keith say the word noodle is the funniest damn thing to ever happen, and it sends Lance into a hacking, wheezing fit that ends with Keith sinking down onto the sofa and patting at his back. When he calms down, so does Keith’s hand, softening to a soothing rub, up and down his spine. 

“How have you not killed yourself by this point?” Keith snarks.

“Dumb luck,” Lance shoots back. “Dumb luck and dumber people who’ve stuck around long enough to care if I’m alive or not.”

Keith retracts his hand, suddenly, and Lance misses the warmth of it, wishes he wasn’t so sick so he could memorize the weight and feel of it. Keith plops a spoon into the bowl of soup and holds it up to Lance. “It’s good. Family recipe.”

Lance takes it in his hands, feels the heat through the bowl and wants to jump inside. He eyes the broth. “Is this going to turn me into a llama?”

Keith’s face is perfect. “What?”

“Nothing,” he takes a spoonful and plops it into his mouth—and if he does end up morphing into another species, it’s totally worth it, because the soup demolishes any ill-ache that’s wedged itself underneath his skin and in his joints. It warms him, soothes his throat, clears his sinuses, and just lets him feel okay for a second. He makes the appropriate sounds to convey his resurrection from what was clearly death by blankets. “Why isn’t this on the diner menu? This should be on the diner menu.”

“Family recipe,” Keith echoes his earlier words, like that’s an answer. Like it’s sacred, because of that. If so, why is Keith sharing his oh-so-special soup with the ever-plebe status’d Lance? The questions smash into an interstate pileup of thoughts, which Lance decides to obliterate with another mouthful of hot, creamy, chicken-y goodness.

“Seriously, you could can this stuff, sell it all over the world, show that second-rate Campbell’s what for. Soon pop-art silkscreen prints of Keith’s Home Soups will show up in galleries all over the nation. Your commercials will spawn the careers of future child stars. Plankton will be trying to steal the secret formula by building a life-sized Keith robot.”

“It’s not even the fever talking—you’re always like this. I never know what you’re saying,” Keith says, mostly to himself. He’s not saying it to be mean, because Lance knows when Keith is trying to be mean. He’s saying it because he means it, and while there’s nothing wrong with the words themselves, they sound like an echo of high school where words like that, words that pointed out how uselessly strange Lance was, cut through him. Lance turns forward, finishing his soup quietly and quickly as the two of them watch Guy Fieri go into labor after trying some deli’s pancetta.

“Someone should submit Blue Moon to be on this show,” Lance says.

Immediately, “Absolutely not.”

“Oh my god, you and Guy in the same room? The ground would split open beneath you and the fires of Hades would finally claim your ghoulish souls in order to keep the apocalypse from happening.”

-

Keith cleans the small mess he made in the kitchen and scrubs the pot bottoms with Brillo to do some damage control on the burnt steel. While he’d been napping, Keith had thrown Lance’s comforter in the wash, and has to wrestle the throw blanket from him before pushing Lance into the bathroom, muttering about how the steam of a shower will do his head good. When Lance unfurls on a damp cloud of bliss, his living room’s been cleaned of all the debris and Lance’s newly washed and dried comforter is slung over the back of the sofa where the pillows have all been put back into place.

“Feel better?”

Lance jumps out of his skin.

He glares. “Dude, make a freakin’ noise next time.”

“I did. It’s called speaking.”

Lance motions. “You cleaned?”

Keith shuffles, looking caught. This is so weird, Lance thinks. This is so weird and awkward and he kind of wishes Keith would just leave, but Lance knows when he does he’ll wish he wasn’t alone anymore. Which makes the whole situation even weirder.

“You didn’t have to do that.” He sighs, then slumps into the sofa and cocoons himself immediately. There is nothing, Lance decides, more amazing in this world than clean blankets.

“You have the rest of the week off. If you still don’t feel better, let us know,” Keith tilts his chin up, resuming his normal air of resigned superiority.

Lance peaks out from his blanket burrito. That’s all? The dude cleans his house and takes care of him and that’s all he has to say? And what, exactly, is it that Lance _wants_ him to say? He shakes the thought off, and says through a stuffed nose, “Tell Shiro I said thanks. For the caring and the soup.”

Something tightens in Keith’s demeanor, expression unreadable. “There’re leftovers in the fridge.”

Keith leaves, just as sudden and rushed as when he’d come in. And as the door slams shut behind him, Lance is left in his empty apartment feeling like soup isn’t the only thing that’s left over.

-

The onset haze of gross sickness clears, and with a good day’s sleep and some of the kickass soup to shoo the residual sniffles away, Lance heads into the diner Monday night for his shift. He catches Shiro just as he’s on his way into the back office with a big wave.

“Hey Lance.” Shiro grins. Lance thinks Shiro has probably never been sick a day in his entire incredibly muscled life. “How’re you feeling?”

“Great. Well, better, I guess. Uh—I just wanted to say thanks. For the soup and stuff.”

His eyebrows draw together. “What soup?”

“The soup,” Lance repeats, voice ringing with an undertone of _duh._ “The soup you sent Keith over with.”

A strange, knowing glint curls its way onto Shiro’s face—in the corners of his eyes, his mouth, lilted and pinned by something almost gleeful being stamped down.

“Lance!” Keith barks from behind the counter. “Stop standing around and get to work.”

Shiro’s expression mutes itself, and he gives a quick half smile before pushing through the kitchen doors, leaving Lance in his wake with nothing but a whirring brain and tight chest. Because why would Keith bring him soup? And lie and say Shiro made him do it? That—

Lance frowns, eyes flickering over to Keith, who’s punching something into the register like the keys have done something to personally offend him. He freezes, feeling Lance’s eyes on him, and whips his head up to scowl, angrily mouthing _what?_

Lance blinks himself out of his lapse. No. No way. Just—

No way.

-

Lance dreams in thick layers of heavy color and deep heat. He moves slowly, purposefully through air like water, through what feels like warmth and shade, something and nothing, guidless but yearning as his fingers pull at lights and sounds. The first wholly solid and real thing his hands find is firm shoulders begging to be clutched, the downturned slant of a mouth finding his lips through a haze of sensation. Every part of him is a gasp, a sudden inhale from his lungs to his heart to his gut to his soul, suspended in sweet shock.

Keith straddles his lap, fingers tightening into a fist in the hair at the back of Lance’s head, forcing it back. Lance breathes heavy, chest heaving and heartbeat blaring in his own ears, terrified but so undeniably turned on with his face hot and mouth open, practically panting for whatever Keith will give him. And Lance wants anything, everything, a whimper spilling out when Keith yanks his head back a little further, his lips just barely ghosting over the line of Lance’s expose neck, breath burning hot, damp. 

He feels Keith say, “It means you’re mine. Forever.”

“Please,” Lance chokes out. “Please.”

Keith bites, teeth sinking into the tender spot at his pulse, sucking. Lance’s mouth falls open in what wants to be a scream but bubbles out as a broken whimper, hips seeking friction and hands demanding purchase as starbursts of everything burn through him when he tumbles out of red hued want and need into cool sheets. Lance blinks at his shadowed ceiling, heart hammering against his chest and oh. Oh god. There’s a warm, wet weight against the divot of hip meeting his thigh, and there’s the cold snap of his humming AC, and there’s the dawning realization of who, and what, and where, and why. Oh god. 

He slaps a hand against the side of his neck, where a phantom mark should be.

_Oh god._

-

Once in a blue moon (get it?) Allura comes into the diner.

Usually in the mornings, so Lance only catches her if he’s traded shifts with someone. She likes their selection of pastries and asks for warmed chocolate croissants to go with her tea and Lance, who has mostly given up on overtly flirting with her, will ask her if she wants a refill when he really wants to ask her if she remembers him from high school. 

Allura had been involved with everything in high school, so even without the ethereal glow and the constant stream of gossip about the new girl from England, it would’ve been impossible not to notice her. Her, or the tiny curls of silver hair that sprung free form her bun by the end of the day and whispered against her long neck, which Lance would stare at for all of eighth period and were probably the sole reason he failed computer science sophomore year. That, and he maintained to this day that Iverson totally had it out for him, so whatever.

“Could I get a chai and a warmed croissant, please?” Allura asks, setting her purse on the empty stool next to her. She’s home for the summer from college, and Lance sees her around at a lot of parties, but it always feels like he’s looking at her through glass. Even now, in front of him in a pink and white polkadot sundress with her hair down and her perfume hitting him like a freight train, she seems otherworldly.

“You’re out late,” he says, plopping the teabag into a mug and reaching for the electric kettle.

“Yes, well,” she accepts the tea with an almost shy smile. “It’s the summer. I think it’s alright if I stay up late every once in a while. Hello, Keith.”

Lance turns to find Keith hovering at the edge of the counter, right by the kitchen doors. He looks caught, waving awkwardly. “Hey.”

“Do you two work together a lot?” Allura asks.

Keith glowers at Lance. “Work is a strong word, but yeah.”

“Dude, so harsh,” Lance whines, turning back to Allura. “See what I have to put up with?”

“What _you_ have to put up with?” Keith snaps. 

Allura laughs, and Lance is suddenly sixteen years old sitting in the high school cafeteria, so transfixed by the way Allura’s nose wrinkled he missed his mouth when he went to take a sip of chocolate milk and spilled it all over himself. He smiles at her now, still melting a little inside, but the clench of his chest is distinctly nostalgic. 

“Sorry, I don’t mean to laugh but,” she’s still giggling as she goes on, “but just imagining you two working together all night is really rather funny.”

Lance shoots Keith a glare, who sneers right back.

Lance tries his hardest not the stare at her while she eats, stuffing napkins into dispensers a little more forcefully than is strictly necessary while Keith circles the diner, wiping off already clean tables. Allura sits, oblivious to it all, tearing off bits of the croissant and popping them into her mouth between sips of milky tea, then scrolls through her phone with a clean pinky. 

Lance, because he’s a idiot, goes for the old fail safe. “So, I don’t know if you’ve heard, but there’s a gun show this weekend, if you’d like to come.”

Her eyebrows climb to her hairline. “A gun show? You must be joking, with the state of current firearm legislation, that’s entirely—”

“He’s just gonna roll up the sleeves of his shirt and flex for you. That’s the gun show,” Keith groans from behind her. 

“Way to blow up my spot, man.” Lance sags. Allura looks at least a little less horrified. “And the only way you’d know that is if you use that line.”

“You’ve used that joke on me like, a million times.”

Lance’s face goes hot, mind flashing back to every time he did, in fact, use the gun show joke on Keith to show off his gains.

“Oh! That reminds me,” Allura wipes her hands on a napkin after her plate is cleared, and starts rummaging through her purse. “I was hoping I’d see you here, because I found—oh, where is it—aHA!”

She pulls an envelope out form some deep, cavernous pocket, brandishing it proudly before opening the flap and pulling out a picture from inside.

“I found this when I was packing up my old room—I’m moving into an apartment not too far from here, actually, but look.” She slides the picture across the counter, towards him. Lance leans in, frowning, because he’s not sure what he’s looking at until he sees his own face, slim and spotted with acne. “We were so young. But you really haven’t changed all that much. Joke-wise, at least.”

It’s a shot of the stage crew from the high school’s production of _Our Town,_ which Allura had been manager of, and Lance had signed up for purely just to be around her as often as possible. She’s in the center, surrounded by all the other kids, smiling brightly at the camera while Lance is doing his best Tyra Banks-esque smize over the shoulder, one finger to his lips, being an overdramatic weirdo like always off in the corner.

Keith snorts right in his ear. “Nice My Chemical Romance shirt.”

“Hey.” Lance points a finger. “In this house we love and respect MCR.”

“It’s not a house,” Keith says, pushing Lance’s hand out of his face. “It’s a diner.”

“You’re completely missing the point, dude.”

“Which is that you were weird emo theater kid. You were literally all the worst things rolled into one.”

“Stage crew. I was _stage crew,_ there’s a difference.”

“Did you go around wearing fedoras?”

“Oh, yes,” Allura chimes in. “He wore them all the time, when he wasn’t wearing those...what were they? The headbands with the metal from that Japanese show?”

Keith looks like Christmas came early. “And you were an anime kid?”

Lance’s mouth falls open, a tiny squeak of protest working its way out as he watches Keith let out a vicious laugh, lip curling up over his straight teeth, his canines a bit pronounced, and Lance’s face is immediately wrecked with heat as his dream comes flooding back to him. 

“Okay, one?” He looks at Allura. “It was a forehead protector, not a headband. And two, Keith, don’t act like you are not the living embodiment of Sasuke.”

Keith scowls. “I am _not_ Sasuke.”

“Dude, you are so Sasuke.”

They only stop when Allura laughs, standing and slinging her bag over her shoulder.

“I’ve got to go,” she says, sliding over a few crisp bills across the counter. “But thanks for the laugh. I’ll have to make late night craving runs more often.”

“We’re always open,” Keith tells her, which, okay, there’s nothing really super flirty about that, but the fact that Keith is talking to another living person at all is borderline astounding. Lance tries not to feel too bitter about it; Keith talks to him all the time. Albeit the ‘talking’ is more in the vein of yelling, but still. 

She tells Lance to keep the picture when he tries to hand it back, flipping her hair over her shoulder as she walks out the door, a last breath of her perfume left in her wake. Lance slumps against the counter, watching her walk across the street to the car waiting for her at the edge of the park. It peels off into the night in a blur of red taillights, and Lance wonders who picked her up, a strange ball of almost-jealousy sitting tight in his stomach. He thinks, maybe if she’d stayed, he could make her laugh more, without all the ugly pretense of obnoxious flirting. Maybe they’d become friends, or something. He sighs, standing up straight. Not that he’s owed that or anything, it would just be….nice. 

“So like,” Keith asks, crossing his arms. “You two were….?” He makes some wiggling finger hand motion that Lance supposes is meant to be significant.

“Wow, no,” a laugh bursts deep from his gut, almost painfully. “She was like, so far out of my league. Like there used to be rumors that I’m pretty sure turned out to be true that she’s like, descended royalty. I basically just pined after her for three years and made a general ass out of myself whenever she got close enough. I didn’t even think she remembered me until about, oh,” Lance checks his imaginary watch and says, “five minutes ago? Give or take.”

Keith snorts. “I doubt anyone could forget you, even if they tried.”

“You probably—no, you _definitely_ mean that in an insulting way, but I? Will choose to take it as a compliment.” He sticks his nose up in the air and snatches the bills Allura left on the counter.

“Whatever you say, man.”

Pushing the register shut, he pauses, a thought hitting him. “What were you like? In high school.”

The only way he can picture a teenage Keith is as a caricature of a 1950s greaser, cutting class and trading smokes and doing complex ensemble song and dance numbers. He’d definitely look pretty good in a leather jacket...with his hair pushed back out of his face and…fingerless....gloves….

Keith turns, mostly facing away from Lance as he goes, “I dropped out when I was fifteen. So I wasn’t really like anything.”

Lance flinches, snapping right out of it with a rigid spine. “Oh. Uh. Sorry.”

A shrug. “Nothing to be sorry for. It was a long time ago. I found Shiro, and we have the diner. So. It’s fine.”

Lance bites at the inside of his cheek, watching Keith’s shoulders through the thin material of his shirt. He has to make himself look away, taking Allura’s empty plate and placing it with the tub of dirty dishes by his feet. “That stuff, though, it uh...it stays with you.”

Keith looks up at him finally, face carefully blank, but Lance sees his jaw tick.

“Maybe we would’ve been friends,” Lance tries, forcing his way through the tension. “If we knew each other then.”

And it works, because Keith’s mouth slants and he huffs, “Not a chance.”

When their shift ends and the sun starts pinking the sky, Lance swims through tired eye daydreams of Keith against lockers and under bleachers, young and loud and weird enough that he’d be Lance’s friend.

-

“So Allura remembers me.”

Hunk’s head pops up from where he was rummaging through the big plastic cooler, fishing out the last of the beers buried underneath mostly melted ice. They had some of the old robotics club over for drinks and Frozen Pizza Olympics, but it’s Thursday and they’re all almost semi-adults now, so everyone was out by eleven, leaving just Hunk and Lance with a pile of DiGiorno crusts and fading citronella candles. “Seriously? Dude!”

“Yeah,” Lance sighs, slumping against the patio table. “She gave me this picture from our stage crew days…it was nice.”

“You kind of lamented over her maybe not remembering you for like, four years man.” Hunk stands, tossing Lance a can of Coke as he walks back over. “I thought you’d be a little more psyched about it.”

“I mean, I’m happy, I’m just also like, not into her anymore?” Lance realizes it’s true the second the words come out.

“Woah,” Hunk stares, wide eyes. “This is kind of monumental.”

“I mean,” Lance goes on, “I think my sixteen year old self will always be sixteen-in-love with her, but. I don’t know. Now-Lance doesn’t get that same throwy-uppy reckless adrenaline rush thing when I see her. I haven’t for a while now.”

“That’s…good?” Hunk hazards, raising his drink to his mouth. “I don’t know. How do you feel?”

“Fine, I guess. Not too different, just…” Lance frowns at the tab of his can, flicking it back and forth. “Were the fedoras weird?”

Hunk shrugs. “Not as weird as the Naruto headbands, but yeah, still weird.”

“For the last time, they weren’t headbands. They were forehead protectors.”

“Yeah, and let’s be real, it was the only kind of protection you were wearing in high school.”

Lance throws a piece of pizza crust at him. Just because Hunk is right, doesn’t mean he has to say it.

-

Lance has a Regular.

It has taken him two long, long years, but he finally has an honest to god Regular.

Is it too soon to be calling Glasses Guy a Regular? He doesn’t want to rush into things—true Regulars need time and effort and well paced chit-chat full of _it’s been a long day_ ’s and _did you hear_ ’s—but it just feels so right, and Lance can’t help but whip his head up every time the bell above the door chimes. It’s only been a week and a half, but in that time Glasses Guy has come in more often than not, situated himself at the counter, and only ever tries to catch Lance’s eye to order his five sandwich and pastry combo. And he leaves a five dollar tip. Lance has done the math. That’s a one hundred freakin’ percent tip. 

“Sounds like a Regular to me,” Hunk tells him. Hunk would know. Hunk has like, a dozen Regulars who come in at all hours to see if he’s working. Lance thinks it the dimples. “But it also sounds like he wants something more than some scones, if you know what I’m saying.”

Lance blinks. “We have like, a whole array of pastry items.”

Hunk rolls his eyes. “I mean, it sounds like he likes you. Like he wants to hop aboard the Lance Express and ride you all the way downtown.”

“Oh,” Lance breathes, cheeks burning. “Wow, you think?”

Hunk’s just about to answer when the door chimes and Glasses Guy walks in. Lance makes a few aborted sounds and hand movements, signaling to Hunk who, because he is the best bro ever, receives the message immediately, waggles his eyebrows, and heads to sit at the other end of the counter. Regulars are nice and everything, but hooking up with cute guys? Infinitely better. 

Lance is smiling, wide and warm as Glasses Guy meets his eyes, when Keith barks from where he’s cleaning the espresso machine, “Lance, I need you to organize the back room.”

Lance whips around, mouth gaping, shoots a look at Hunk, who’s clearly at a loss with his shrugging shoulders and wide eyes. He swings back around to Keith and tries, “I’m actually—”

“I’m not asking.” Keith finally looks up, slamming the top of the machine shut. “Go in the back and do inventory, and afterwards take your lunch.”

He looks back at Glasses Guy, who is tracking the entire exchange like it’s a tennis match. Lance rounds back on Keith. “Can it really be considered a lunch break when it’s two-thirty in the morning? I mean, c’mon.”

He can actually see Keith’s nostrils flare.

“Fine,” Lance grunts, shooting one final, longing glance back at Glasses Guy before slinking into the back.

-

By the time Lance has sorted out the storage room and stuffed his face full of stale Danishes, Glasses Guy is gone. His heart gives a small tug of disappointment, some stupid, hopelessly romantic chunk of him having hoped Glasses Guy would refuse to leave until Lance came back so they could do their amaretto bit, laugh, maybe trade numbers…

Lance sighs and fixes his apron back on. Keith side eyes him before asking, “What?”

“Nothing,” Lance snaps. “Just recovering from the loss of my one Regular. Excuse me while I put Air Supply on the jukebox for the next hour straight.”

Keith squints. “Your what?”

“You know—a Regular. A regular customer who comes in and only asks for me and we have bits and over the years we develop a bond. He asks how my Great Aunt Cecilia is, I ask him about the auto insurance biz, _etcetera,_ ” Lance explains, and when all he gets is a blank look in return, he scoffs. “Everyone has a Regular, except for me. Glasses Guy was my one and only.”

“I don’t have any regulars.”

Lance jumps up to sit on the counter, counting off his fingers. “Yolanda who owns the laundromat across the street always asks for you. Tofu Tommy on Wednesdays. Monocle Guy.”

“Monocle guy?”

“Comes in twice a week, kinda tall, brownish hair, _wears a freakin’ monocle all the time,”_ Lance stresses. “It’s kind of a hard thing to miss.”

Keith just eyes him, a quick up down, and only says, “Get off the counter, Lance.”

-

“It’s official. I’ve lost my one and only Regular.” Lance throws himself across the counter in front of Hunk, arms dangling off the end. “He was my one chance at happiness. Now I’m destined to be a lonely, Regular-less spinster for the rest of my food service days.”

Hunk ignores him, looking around. “Is Keith here tonight?”

“Nay,” Lance exhales loudly, picking his head up. “My single reprieve—he switched with Matt for the day shift for the rest of the week, because apparently he’s not a vampire? Who knew.”

“Dude,” Hunk’s voice is suddenly low and intense as he moves himself to face Lance directly. “Haven’t you ever wondered why you don’t have any regulars? Like any at all?”

“Uh.” Lance looks down at himself. “Sometimes. But I try not to dwell. I like having self-esteem.”

“Lance.” Hunk leans in, voice just a breath as he says, “I come in here a lot to visit you, and I didn’t want to say anything, because I didn’t want to make things weird, and because Keith still kind of terrifies me, but—”

“Bro, spit it out,” Lance urges.

“Keith scares away all your regulars,” Hunk blurts, then clamps his mouth shut as she whips his head around, like Keith might come crashing down from the ceiling.

Lance winces. _“What?”_

“Dude, I see it all the time. Some college kid’ll come in once or twice and ask for you by name, and Keith will shut them down before you even get a chance at them.”

“So what?” Lance blinks. “You’re saying Keith’s been stealing my Regulars?”

“No man,” Hunk shakes his head. “I’m saying he scares them off. He does that whole intense looming thing he does so well, and they run out with their tail between their legs. Glasses Guy got the farthest, and Lance—you should’ve seen the way Keith practically tossed him out by his ear the second you left.”

Lance gapes, mouth opening and shutting audibly as he tries to find some semblance of speech.

“And this is not the first time,” Hunk finishes, laying some money down on the table. “Just so you know.”

-

Keith’s back that Sunday night. Lance finds his eyes flickering up and tracking his movements as he refills the coffee pots or puts out a fresh batch of doughnuts on the display, checks receipts and takes an odd order or two. Lance can’t stop himself, like some miniscule movement will betray all of Keith’s ulterior motives in one fell swoop. The quarter to four lull hits harder than normal, silence resonating deep and hard as Lance tries his best not to think about all the things Hunk told him. Tries his best, and fails miserably, floundering in his own vicious thought cycle.

“Would you stop staring at me?” Keith turns sharply to face Lance, who has to catch himself from falling over the edge of the counter where he’s leaning.

Keith raises his eyebrows, a telltale _is there something you want, plebe?_ And Lance is, well…

“Would you stop scaring off my would-be Regulars?” Lance fires back, straightening his spine. Keith’s expression betrays absolutely nothing, but Lance pushes on. “That’s right. Someone, who I’ll refrain from naming, told me all about your plot to sabotage my happiness. Way to exceed my expectations for your dickbag potential, by the way.”

“I don’t scare anyone off,” Keith glares. “And tell Hunk to mind his own business.”

“I know it’s a foreign concept to you, but Hunk’s my friend.” Lance steps forward. “Y’know—people who like each other and are nice to each other and don’t scare off each other’s Regulars because they’re stupid and jealous.”

Keith scoffs and says in a totally overly done, unconvincing way, “I am not jealous.”

“Well I don’t know what else it could be,” Lance flaps a hand. “You’re obviously mad because I had all these great customers showering me with attention. Admit it. You’re jealous they all liked me better than you.”

“That’s not it at all,” Keith’s voice slices through the air with a ring of truth as he avoids Lance's eyes.

“Then what? Were you just doing it to torture me? Do you hate me _that_ much?” Lance presses.

“No,” Keith’s voice rattles the display case. He’s close—he’s so close, face inches away, eyes raking over Lance's probably flushed face. Lance exhales, features taught with anger. Only Keith. Only Keith can get him like this. The bell above the door chimes, and they both turn, breaking out of…whatever it was they were just in.

It’s Monocle Guy, coming in for his green tea and bagels. 

“I’m taking my lunch,” Lance says, and shucks off his apron before Keith can say another word.

-

Lance runs.

A habit from his being on the track team the last couple years of high school, most days he makes the effort, if only to truly exhaust himself so that the only thing he can truly focus on is the throb of his pulse and the burn of his lungs. Usually right when he gets off work he’ll change into his workout clothes in the employee bathroom, stuff his backpack in Shiro’s office, and take off through the park as the sun comes up, circling the main track twice before making a turn out of the southeast corner and running back to his apartment building to shower and collapse into bed.

Instead of heading home after the first two laps, he does another, then another, then makes a pivot to head onto the walking trails, and just keeps going. Going until the sun is well above the trees and his legs are screaming, until finally there’s nowhere else to go, the river that runs through the middle of the state park stopping him.

He heaves in and out giant gulps of air, doubling over to brace his hands against his knees, but his knees aren’t having it and he just sort of half stumbles into a pile of mud and leaves. For the last three hours of work, he and Keith didn’t even look at each other.

Lance drags himself over to the rocks, trying to keep his balance as he climbs up to the long flat boulder that hangs over the river, lying down and letting his arms dangle off the edge, his distorted reflection staring back up at him. 

“I like him,” Lance says, groaning and pressing his forehead against the rock. “I really, really like him. What the absolute hell.”

Because he has. For a while now. Not just attraction, not just wanting to be friends. He likes Keith, and it’s terrible. It’s terrible, and annoying, and god, he’s smiling. He’s smiling like the huge weird idiot that he is, thinking about Keith scaring off his regulars, making soup for him, making fun of him.

He splashes his hand through his reflection and rolls onto his back. He’s not sure low long he stays there, but eventually he stands on wobbly legs and heads back through the sunshine patched path, texting his sister to see if she’ll come pick him up.

-

“Mama,” Gabby says, “Uncle Lance is dirty, he can’t get in the car!”

“We’ll make an exception just this once, babe.” Izzy casts a long, judgemental up-down at him. “Do I even want to know?”

“Epiphanies and whatnot,” Lance shrugs, sliding open the minivan door. 

“You couldn’t manage an epiphany without rolling around in mud?”

“You know me.” He slams the door shut. “Always gotta do things the hard way.”

-

Tuesday night, it’s only the first hour of their shift, and Keith’s scrubbed down the tables three separate times now—not just that simple, lazy wiping Lance is so fond of, but hard presses full of elbow grease that knocks the edge into the wall over and over. Lance sits on the counter and watches, swinging his legs, fascinated as Keith slams his weight behind the ebb and flow of his motions, wondering what it’d be like to have Keith put that kind of sheer force into something other than cleaning.

Pidge tumbles in through the door a quarter past, hunched by the weight of her backpack. She usually comes in for Keith, like Hunk does for Lance, though rather than easy banter and comfortable jabs, it mostly consists of Pidge working on...whatever it is people who graduated from college at sixteen work on, snarking and Keith and complaining about how much she has on her plate this week. And when Keith dares to mention that maybe she should take it easy, she’ll hit him with a particularly scratching look and demand that he should just leave the whole pot of coffee with her.

But when she sees Keith, her eyebrow shoot to her hairline. “Keith, what’re you still doing here?”

“Working,” Keith says without looking up, arm moving in powerful circles against table six.

“You already worked a double though.” Pidge’s face creases. “Have you been here all day?”

Keith says nothing, just keep wiping that same spot.

Pidge shoots Lance a helpless look. Lance sighs and hops down off the counter, traipses over, laying a gentle hand on Keith’s moving arm, which stills immediately.

“Keith,” Lance says. “What do you say I drive you home, hm?”

Keith won’t look at him, but at Lance’s touch his body slumps forward, pressed into the table.

“Pidge, think you can cover for us while I take him?” Lance comes up behind Keith and takes the rag from his hand.

“Yeah.” Pidge nods. “You want me to call Shiro?”

“He’s in Texas,” Keith says, spitting the last words like they’re a curse. “And I’m fine.”

“That’d be great,” Lance tells Pidge, then turns to Keith. “And oh my god, seriously? You’re like, two degrees away from coming after us with an ax, Jack.”

Keith stands, unmoving, unflinching.

“Keith, you should go,” Pidge says softly. Lance always kind of wondered if Keith and Pidge were actually ever friends, or if Keith actually had any friends, the way he seemed so disinterest other people, how short he could be with them. But now Lance sees the way Keith takes a moment to regard Pidge, eyes glassy in the light of the diner, and he nods his head, unlooping his apron without another word.

“Alright,” Lance claps his hands, too loud for the tension stifled air. “Let’s hit it.”

Keith casts one last glare at Pidge, who’s moved to grab the spare apron from behind the counter. “Traitor.”

Pidge smiles and salutes.

-

Keith’s apartment is dark when he and Lance get inside, cool air still and empty as the door swings open. Waiting for Keith to come in and be alone. So help him, Lance is not about to let that happen. And if Lance is good at anything, it’s going where he doesn’t belong and making up excuses to stall.

“Nice place,” he says as he flips on the lights to reveal bare walls and almost no furniture in the giant, airy loft. He adds for conviction, “Homey. I especially love what you’ve done with the décor.”

Keith wobbles over to the couch and collapses, limbs spread and head lolling back. Lance slinks into the kitchenette and starts pulling open cabinets and drawers.

“Aha!” he says, pulling out a box of tea. “Berry Zinger! Should’ve known you liked the kinky stuff.”  
“It’s Shiro’s.”

“My kinky assertion still stands then.” Lance fills the kettle. The entire apartment reeks of antiseptic, like someone had just spent a good deal of time scrubbing every surface clean. The open cabinets show everything lined perfectly and organized, grouped into like items. The only thing that really stands out is the coffee table sitting in the adjacent dining area—it’s a giant slice of tree stump, hundreds of rings going around in an oblong shape, fixed atop wrought iron legs twisted to look like roots. Lance nods to it, “Not gonna find that at Homegoods.”

Keith looks to see what Lance is nodding to from his spot on the couch. “No, you won’t.”

“It’s cool,” Lance says, watching the blue flames lick at the bottom of the kettle. “Shiro buy it somewhere?”

“No,” Keith says, then pauses. “It’s—I made it.”

“You made it?” Lance whips his head around. “Dude.”

Keith shrugs, clearly not wanting to talk about his apparently masterful carpentry skills.

“Seriously,” Lance walks over to it, crouching down. “That’s amazing, like, why aren’t you some crazy famous furniture guy? Assuming those exist. Admittedly, I’m not well read on famous carpenters—I mean, I’ve heard of that Jesus guy, and that’s about it.”

Another shrug. “I have a job.”

“Yeah, but,” Lance says, “You also have a huge disdain for the general populace, who you have to deal with every day at your job. If you did the furniture thing, you could just hide in the woods like the JD Salinger we all know you aspire to be.”

Keith stares straight ahead. “Me and Shiro started Blue Moon together. After I dropped out, and he’d just gotten out of rehab for his arm….we did it together. I don’t want to just leave all that.”

“And me,” Lance says loftily. “Obviously you can’t leave me.”

Keith’s glare is just as sharp as ever, and Lance coughs, trying to ignore the constant chant of, _you like him, you like him, you wanna smooch his face!_

“So,” he sighs, turning. “Shiro’s in Texas.”

Keith straightens up on the couch, head turning towards the window. “He had some stuff to take care of.”

“My mom does stuff like that,” Lance gets a cup just as the kettle starts to whistle. “Goes down to SoCal where we used to live, visit my dad’s grave.”

He feels Keith’s eyes on the back of his neck as the hot water pours into the mug.

“It was always really hard for me, when she’d leave. I’d, y’know, cry a lot, and my older brother couldn’t handle me, and my sisters were so young, and we were just alone. So one year—I was sixteen? I drove down to his grave myself and found her there,” Lance swallows, and heads over to the coffee table where he sets down the tea, taking a seat in the adjacent chair. 

A pause, he looks up, and Keith is staring at him but quickly averts his gaze. The damage is done, though—Lance knows he’s listening. 

“I always thought she left because she didn’t want to see me, but I think that, y’know, a big part of it was that she didn’t want me to see her. Not like that. And it wasn’t fair of her, to do that, leave me like that but…nothing about any of it was fair. Still isn’t. It was just her way of trying to cope for herself, for once. My way was working myself to the point of exhaustion, mostly to keep myself from thinking about it,” Lance looks up again, and Keith is pointedly staring out the window. “I have a feeling you get that.”

Keith shifts, hesitating before leaning forward and grabbing the tea. He sips. “This is disgusting.”

Lance snorts.

Keith never tells him to leave.

-

He only wakes up when Shiro comes in through the front door in a clatter of jangling keys and rustling bags.

Lance must’ve fallen asleep at some point during his and Keith’s dive into the world of late night infomercials. Shiro is stopped in his tracks, eyes taking in the scene before him, Keith’s head rolled back with this throat long and his mouth open, soft snores bubbling up, while Lance’s face somehow wound up mashed against his shoulder. Oh god, is that drool? That’s definitely drool. 

He sits up, eyes darting over to Keith, then back to Shiro, once, twice, three times. “Uh.”

“It’s too early to deal with this,” Shiro waves a hand, dropping his bags and letting the door swing shut.

“Right, I’m just gonna.” Lance jerks his head towards the door. “Go.”

Shiro’s rummaging around in the kitchen. “Bye Lance, see you— _did you drink the last of my Berry Zinger?”_

Lance breaks out into a run.

-

He’s not working again until Friday night, and the thought of seeing Keith again sets his stomach on edge for the entire day. As far as he knows, Keith doesn’t know about their late night cuddle sesh. And even if he does—what’s he going to do? Rate Lance on his snuggling skills? _Eight for willingness to nuzzle, but three for general boney-ness. 5/10 overall, would not snuggle again._

Lance sighs.

“Get off the counter.”

Lance’s heart almost busts through his ribcage as his body seizes, and he falls off the edge, struggling to regain balance.

He stands up, runs a hand through his hair. Like he’d meant to do that. “Hey Keith.”

“We need to talk,” Keith says, looking infuriatingly composed. Lance mind keeps flashing back to watching Keith asleep in the apartment, so completely vulnerable looking. There’s not an inch of that in Keith’s rigid posture now, arms crossed and eyes hard, mouth in a firm frown.

“I—yeah, sure. I’m great at talking. I was on the debate team for a while in school. It involved a lot of y’know,” Lance swallows. “Talking.”

“After work,” Keith says.

“Sounds great,” Lance says, and watches Keith turn and walk to the other end of the diner where a couple’s just settled into a booth. “Amazing. Perfect. Can’t wait for that conversation.”

_He’ssofired._

-

Lance takes his time grabbing his bag from the back, stuffing his apron into his bag, checking his phone, exchanging nods with Pidge who’s rushing to handle the sudden flood of breakfast patrons. When there’s nothing else left to do, he sighs in the empty back room, amongst the judging, blank faces of cardboard boxes when the door creaks open, Keith walking through.

“Hey,” Lance greets. He nods towards the boxes. “Did you put the decimal in the wrong place, what is that, like 5,000 bottles of ketchup? Unless you’re in with the Heinz family like I’ve always suspected.”

“We have to talk,” Keith bulldozes through his attempt at smalltalk. 

“So you say,” Lance feels his throat seize up. “Look, if it’s about the other night—”

“It’s not.”

Lance blinks. “Oh.”

“It’s about you working at the diner,” Keith says, like that’s supposed to be reassuring. The fluorescent lighting slants over his face, making his eyes look sunken and his skill sallow. Lance still wants to kiss him bad, but maybe make him a sandwich first.

Lance rubs at his eyes, feeling the weight of 6am sitting on him. “Oh, good. Here I thought it was going to something serious.”

“You’ve been with us for almost three years now,” Keith starts, voice professional. “Shiro thinks you’re really dependable, and always put in the extra effort and time.”

“Shiro thinks that,” Lance drawls, crossing his arms. “But I’m gonna go out on a limb here and guess you disagree.”

Keith’s face folds. “It doesn’t matter what I think.”

“Of course it matters what you think,” Lance’s voice carries in what wants to be an echo, but the room is too small. 

Keith narrows his eyes. “You really want to know what I think? Really?”

“Yeah, I do,” Lance snaps. He wants to know everything Keith thinks about everything.

“You want to know what I think? I think you’re ridiculous,” Keith says, and it cuts right through Lance’s core. Keith presses forward, face morphing around the words in his mouth, angry and frantic. “You’re the most difficult person I’ve ever had to deal with. Your time management is horrible, your cleaning is always half assed, you’ve got your phone out every five minutes— _you’re always sitting on the damn counter.”_

“Then fire me, Keith,” Lance shoots back. “Fire me and then you’ll never have to deal with me ever again.”

Keith’s expression is somewhere between caught and furious. “I can’t.”

“Why? Because Shiro? He can’t be your scapegoat forever, Keith. Grow the hell up.”

“That’s hilarious,” Keith says, “Coming from you.”

Lance’s mouth clamps shut, face burning. He pauses for a moment, clenching and unclenching his fingers. “Look, either let me go so I can start filling out job applications, or—”

“I’m not firing you,” Keith cuts him off. “I’m trying to give you my job.”

Lance almost falls over from pure, screaming shock. 

“You,” Lance's brain literally short circuits. He can just imagine the sparks flying out of his ears, the plumes of smoke. “You just said—”

“I’m leaving the diner at the end of the month,” Keith tells him. “And while I think you’re the worst employee ever, Shiro thinks you’re pretty great. And the customers like you, and at least you’re reliable.”

“I— _why?”_ is all Lance can get out.

Keith shrugs. “Never really was cut out for the service industry, what with the deep rooted disdain for the general populace.”

“I was only joking when I said that,” Lance pauses, then, “Okay, no I wasn’t, but.”

“I want to leave,” Keith finally says, something vulnerable to his voice, like he’s admitting something. “There’re some things I have to settle. And then…” he shrugs.

 _Are you coming back?_ Lance doesn’t ask. Wants to ask. Desperately.

“I guess that’s that, then,” Lance can’t help the bitter edge to his voice. His big blow out with Keith, finally, after over two years of this crap, and this is all he gets. A promotion and some shrugs. It feels so anticlimactic he could vomit.

“So do you want the job?” is all Keith asks, but the glare of another, deeper questions rings beneath it, wanting out desperately between the cage of letters.

Lance swallows thickly before forcing himself to hold out a hand. “Yeah. I want it.”

-

During Keith’s last weeks at the diner, Lance alternates between the Early Bird and Lunch shifts, and never actually sees him. Just like he’s always wanted.

He’s kind of miserable. 

There’s always something to do, and time moves so quickly—every time he checks his phone (which no one yells at him for) he’s always shocked to see giant chunks of time have passed. Twenty minutes. Forty. An hour. There are constant ketchup refills needed and all of the customers are so painfully normal and coherent in their pushiness that Lance finds himself aching for the weird 3am rambling of Monocle Guy. 

He only sits on the counter once, and when no one yells at him to get off, he slinks back to the floor and feels a something big and vacant worm its way into the center of his chest, where it gapes and gasps for something to hold onto. He’s pretty sure Keith leaves that night, but can’t really be sure, because it’s not like Keith says goodbye to him.

-

Shiro calls him back into his office to go over some of the finer points of his new position and to give him a set of keys when his phone starts buzzing. Shiro flips it over, letting out a loud snort as he thumbs at the screen.

Lance cranes his neck, trying to peek. “What?”

“Nothing, just,” he laughs again, putting the phone on the desk and pushing it towards Lance, who clambers for it. His entire body flushed when he sees that it’s a picture of Keith, a _selfie_ , wearing a foam Statue of Liberty crown, looking as broody and deadpan as ever. Lance should laugh, too, but he’s too busy smiling softly, thumb brushing over the glass like he can reach through it and touch—

Shiro cocks an eyebrow.

“Uh.” Lance quickly shoves the phone back. “He really fits in with that whole _I’m walkin’ here_ vibe, huh?”

“Here,” Shiro says, “there’s more.”

There’s one of Keith in Central Park holding a hotdog, looking miserable. In the middle of Time Square with the lights all around him, looking miserable. On the Brooklyn Bridge. On the steps of the Met. On top of the Empire State building. With the same patented unimpressed, mildly annoyed expression Lance has seen slammed his way so many times it makes that empty hole in his chest wail. 

“Is he...” Lance swallows. “He’s coming back, right?”

“Yes,” Shiro answers, taking his phone back and giving the screen one last fond look. Shiro and Keith’s relationship has always confused him; Lance is pretty sure they’re not blood related, but couldn’t say when or how they met. How they found each other, only that they did, and whatever they have runs deep with the kind of silent, steady loyalty Lance feels for Hunk. Shiro flips the phone face down. “But I'm not sure for how long. It seems to me like he might want to move out there, I mean…there’s nothing really here for him anymore.”

“There’s you,” Lance is quick to point out.

“Keith’s always had me, and he always will,” Shiro says simply. “He knows that. He might need something else now.”

Lance sinks back in his chair as his heart sinks into his stomach.

-

“What’s like, even _in_ New York?” Lance asks Pidge, aggressively channel surfing. “Pizza? Bagels? Buy a box of Bagel Bites and call it a day! Save yourself the trip.”

Pidge says, “Go back, you passed _Property Brothers_.”

“And it’s probably so loud there all the time. He’s not going to be able to deal with that.” Lance flings an arm out, keeping the remote out of her reach. “He could barely even deal with my beautiful acapella cover of _Total Eclipse of the Heart_.”

Pidge sighs, slumping down into the sofa. “Remember when you still hated Keith? Simpler times.”

“I still hate him! Who said I don’t hate him? I totally hate him.” Lance hits the channel button faster, harder. “I’m just confused as to why he’d want to stay in New York, of all places.”

“Uh-huh.” Lance can’t see it, but he can practically hear her roll her eyes. “Lance, you’re gonna break the remote with the sheer force of your emotional repression—give it.”

“I’m not—ugh, whatever,” Lance flips the controller to her, flopping back against the cushions. “I’m just saying, it’s not that cool of a place.”

Pidge just turns the volume up on _Diners, Drive Ins and Dives_ , and Lance hates that the sight of Guy Fieri’s sunburned neckroll makes his chest ache a little.

-

The bell above the door chimes just as Lance finishes the impressive stack of napkin dispensers he’s building next to him on the countertop. His usual 3am schtick, now that Keith’s not around to yell at him for slacking. “Hey, I’ll be with you in just a sec.”

“Get off the counter, Lance.”

He jumps, the pyramid of dispensers knocking over onto the floor in a thunderstorm of clatter applauding him as he whirls around to see Keith standing in the middle of the diner, duffle in one hand, other shoved in his pocket. He looks even better than when he left, and if Lance isn’t mistaken, there is the barest hint of a fond smile tacked to the corners of Keith’s mouth. Like he’s missed this, or something. Missed Lance.

“You’re,” Lance coughs the crack out of his voice. “You’re back. Hey.”

Keith nods. “I’m back.”

“I wasn’t expecting you to be back.” 

“That’s me. Always exceeding expectations. Dickbag or otherwise,” Keith volleys easily, and Lance isn’t ready for this, any of it, Keith there in front of him, joking like they’re friends because oh god, they might actually be friends. Which adds a whole new level of complication to Lance’s itching want to grab Keith’s stupid hair by the fistful and _tug._

Lance forces out a small laugh, rubbing at the back of his burning neck. “I didn’t really mean that, when I said it.”

Keith tilts his head. “Yes, you did.”

“Okay, yeah, maybe I kind of did.”

Keith slinks over to the counter, swinging his leg over a stool and situating himself comfortably across from Lance. “Can I get a coffee?”

Lance composes himself. “To stay or to go?”

“Stay,” Keith says, and lets his bag slide to his feet by the stools.

Hot, dark liquid pools into a cup before it’s sent down Keith’s way with an easy slide, the only sounds filling the air. Lance might be holding his breath, and there’s a beat as Keith’s fingers curl around the ceramic, breathing in the smell. Lance settles back against the hot bar.

“This place looks good,” Keith remarks mildly, eyes never leaving Lance. “Kind of surprised it’s still standing.”

“Yeah, well,” Lance grunts. “Despite your utter lack of faith in my abilities, I can actually manage on my own. I’ve got like, six regulars now. So suck on that.”

“Congratulations,” Keith says. “You proved me wrong.”

Lance stares back. “You know me. Always exceeding expectations.”

Keith hums something to the tune of agreement against the rim of his cup, sipping as his eyes flutter shut. He really is beautiful, Lance thinks, and has really always thought. It strikes him, at nearly 4am on a Tuesday watching Keith’s eyelashes flutter as he sips his coffee, black beyond the windows surrounding them, that this picture is never going to leave him. Whenever he thinks of Keith, the diner, them, wherever he ends up, he’s going to think of this exact moment where he had everything to say stacked behind his clenched teeth.

“You still make it too strong,” Keith says.

Lance scowls. A grade-a jackass. _That’s_ all Keith is. A horrible, beautiful jackass.

“I’ll make the next pot.” Keith is already up and walking around the side of the counter, grabbing the spare apron tucked in the space under the register. He loops it around his neck, tying the knot behind his back effortlessly before those hands reach for the coffeemaker, popping the top.

“Dude, you don’t work here anymore,” Lance reminds him, trying to get in between Keith and the counter, but he’s shrugged aside without even a glance.

“It’s fine.” Keith effortlessly empties the filters, even manages a little twirl with the scoop. “And it’s not like I don’t know what I’m doing.”

Lance sighs, watching Keith move with such practiced ease. He can’t stop himself from pretending it’s just like any other late shift they’ve worked together. Like nothing’s changed. Like Keith’s not going to leave. His heart aches, that empty void sucking it in deeper until Lance just can’t—

“Don’t move to New York.”

Keith’s face folds, eyes lifting to meet Lance’s. “What?”

“Don’t move across the country where I’ll never see you or probably ever hear from you again,” Lance says in a single, gushing breath. “Because if you do I’ll have to keep stealing Shiro’s phone so I can see the pictures you send him because I’ll miss you. I’ll miss you bossing me around and shoving me off the counter and yelling at me for checking my phone and-and watching the stupid sun come up around you. And I miss you right now even though you’re right in front of me, because it still feels like you’re already gone and just,” he sucks in a shaky breath. “Just don’t, okay?”

Keith’s voice softens. “Who told you I was moving to New York?”

Lance tenses. “So it’s true, then.”

“Was it Shiro? It had to be Shiro….” Keith sighs, talking to himself. Lance’s heart sinks into the black hole of his belly, breath leaving his lungs and feeling leaving his limbs until Keith turns to look at him with a wry expression pinched between his eyebrows and the in the corners of his slanted mouth. “I’m not moving to New York.”

Lance blinks. “What.”

“I was visiting my mom. Meeting her, kind of. It’s a whole...long, long story. And once I was out there, uh, I don’t travel much so I figured I’d do as much as I could. It took a little longer than I thought it would,” Keith says, shrugging. “New York’s big.”

“But—I—why would he—”

Keith shoots him a half-grin. 

Blood whirs around in his head, hot and sudden, making his world spin. “I—”

“You’d really miss me that much?” Keith steps forward. “What else. Tell me.”

“I,” Lance gulps, eyes trained on Keith’s, who seems to be coming closer and closer. “Your dumb eyebrows. And how you have like, full conversations through them. That I understand what you’re saying.”

“Mm,” Keith’s hands settle on Lance’s hips, and after a second of hesitation they grip tight.

“And the way you always made me do the grunt work. Like trash duty and sweeping and window washing.” Lance breathes. “And how you do nice things for me, like make me soup when I’m sick, but then try to pretend like it means nothing.”

Keith’s breath is hot against Lance’s face, and his own hands hover, wanting to touch, wanting to grab.

“The way you look at me sometimes,” Lance barely gets out. 

“How do I look at you?”

Lance snorts, “Like you want to kill me.”

“Not like that,” Keith shakes his head, eyes never leaving Lance’s mouth.

“What,” Lance swallows. “What’s it like, then?”

Keith’s hands come up to slide into Lance’s hair and pull him forward, and for all their bluster and energy and edge, when they kiss it’s nothing short of achingly soft. Lance’s fingers find belt loops to wind through, tugging just gently enough, and oh, Keith’s tongue just brushes across Lance’s bottom lip as hips bump, kinetic hum of friction running through denim to skin to bones, and when Keith breathes he’s breathing into him, filling him, burning him. A twist, smacking lips and brushing noses, Lance opening his eyes just enough to see the way Keith’s lashes cast a long fan of a shadow across the highpoints of his cheeks. He lets his fingertips touch it, lets Keith bite his lower lip just enough to punch a whimper out of Lance’s chest.

A break, a shared breath, Lance waiting for Keith’s eyes to flicker open and up. When they do, Lance crushes their lips together again with a sharp inhale, because he wants to, because he can.

There’s a thunk from somewhere distant against the glass, somewhere back in reality with the burnt coffee and unwashed dishes.

“Not to ruin the mood,” Lance steals a few breathless kisses as he tries to speak. “But Monocle Guy is staring at us through the window.”

Keith turns his head, and Monocle Guy is standing right outside, looking like he really wants to come in, but doesn’t want to disturb them, wringing his hands, pacing and pausing to look at them. He waves meekly, and Keith sighs, head dropping onto Lance’s shoulder, the weight of it nearly feeling like another kiss. God he’s so screwed, already addicted to this closeness, the press of another body, no matter how chaste or simple. Lance wants Keith to fall into him and never come back up.

“I have to get back to work,” he hates himself for saying. 

“Oh sure,” Keith grunts, “now you’re all about being a dedicated, hard working employee.”

Lance jabs a finger into Keith’s side, pulling back quicker than Keith can poke him back. “Be nice, or I won’t ask you to come home with me later.”

The warm, half-lidded look Keith gives him shoots straight through Lance’s chest, and he wants to keep it there forever. For the next four hours, he winds himself through tables, pours endless cups of coffee, refills ketchup bottles and leans over the counter on his elbows to talk close and low to Keith, even when they’re alone. The diner has always felt so far away from the rest of the world, especially so late at night and early in the morning, cars never driving by, people barely ever coming inside. It used to feel isolating, looking out and seeing nothing but inky night, stuck in an overheated bubble with narrowed eyes judging him for just trying to get through it all.

Except they hadn’t been judging him. 

“You could’ve left,” Lance says, refilling Keith’s cup. “I wouldn’t care, y’know.” Which is a lie, because it would have driven him mad.

Keith shrugs, bringing his coffee up to his lips, the same ones that’d pressed so sweetly against Lance’s. “I like being here with you.”

He says it so simply, Lance has to blink away the burning pull behind his eyes.

“I do, too,” Lance admits, and lets his hand fall near Keith’s, landing close enough that their knuckles are just barely brushing. The 5am crowd is starting to trickle in, and kissing now would be weird, but god, if Lance doesn’t want to nearly more than he’s ever wanted anything. Keith has to be feeling something similar, because once it starts to get really busy he moves to a small table by the door with his coffee to get out of Lance’s way. The last hour is excruciating, and when Pidge and Matt show up, bleary eyed and ready to take the reigns, Lance can’t shuck his apron off fast enough.

Pidge squints at them from behind her glasses, going back and forth a few times before croaking, “Something’s not right here….but it’s six in the morning and I don’t care enough to figure out what.”

Matt grunts, possibly in agreement, possibly just because it is, in fact, 6am.

Lance blushes, but smiles, having never felt more awake in his life. He has to stop himself from skipping to Keith’s table, who has actually laid out money on the table like he’s a normal customer or something, and Lance finds it hopelessly disgustingly endearing the way he finds most of Keith’s weird idiosyncrasies. The way he finds Keith.

“We could like,” Lance says, “go do something. Like, it’s 6am so most stuff’s closed, but—”

Keith cuts him off, “Or we could go back to your place.”

“Or we could go back to my place,” Lance agrees, probably too quickly.

Keith smiles, and turns to look just beyond Lance’s shoulder. Lance doubletakes, because Monocle Guy is standing there, eyes determined. Lance cocks an eyebrow, “Hey, can I help you?”

He clasps a hand on Lance’s shoulder, and then the other on Keith’s, and says, “This does not happen in every reality, but it is always meant to.”

Lance’s mouth opens, in want of something to say, anything really. But what can he say to that?

“Thanks, Slav,” Keith says, eyebrows knitting. “I think?”

Monocle Guy nods, smiling, before heading out the door with a chime of the bell. Lance turns, gaping at Keith before exclaiming, “You know Monocle Guy’s _name?”_

“Who? Slav?” Keith asks, looking back over his shoulder to where Slav is staring at a puddle. “Yeah, he and Shiro have known each other for years. He’s actually the guy who sold us the place when we first came here.”

“I thought—you—he—” Lance slumps forward. “You know what? Never mind.”

A snort. “C’mon, we should go.” 

When he lifts his head, outside the sun is just starting to come up over the trees, and when Lance looks down, Keith’s hand is held out, just enough to notice if someone is looking, just enough to be ignored if someone isn’t. But Lance is always looking at Keith. 

“Would it be weird to say,” Lance asks, “that I’m kind of disappointed you’re not a vampire?”

“So weird,” Keith says, but his voice is bursting with something warm and soft, and for a second Lance can’t breathe. He reaches out to take Keith’s hand in his own, squeezing, and they walk out into the sunlight together.

 

_/end._

**Author's Note:**

> thanks so much for reading! if you liked this fic, please consider [reblogging it](http://chillnaxin.tumblr.com/post/174193165901/youve-got-a-hand-for-the-taking-and-im-about-to)
> 
> you can find me at [chillnaxin](http://chillnaxin.tumblr.com/)


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